


French Perfume

by Celosia



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Folklore, Mounties (RCMP), Myths & Legends, Tumblr Prompt, aphrarepairweek2019, ghost pirate, ghost story, maple tea - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 09:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celosia/pseuds/Celosia
Summary: After remembering a story that had been passed down from her great-grandfather, Maxine sets out on a mission to see if the legend was true.





	French Perfume

When Maxine was a little girl, she used to always love sitting by the fire and listening to her great-grandfather tell her stories from his time as a Mountie. There was always one story in particular though that she would constantly want him to tell.

 

It was the tale of a bold young smuggler who would constantly smuggle contraband--different perfumes, cigarettes, and rum--between Fortune, Newfoundland and the island of St. Pierre. The man had never been caught, always keeping to the fog to prevent the Mounties from finding him. But one winter’s night, with the full moon in the sky, her great-grandfather and his men had spotted the smuggler coming up Fordger Bay.

 

That was when they had thought they had finally caught the man, shining their spotlight on him and telling him to surrender. They were wrong to assume that the smuggler would so easily surrender though. The man revved the engines of his boat and ran off towards Spanish Room.

 

The Mounties followed after him, following the sound of his maniacal laughter and the banshee cries of the seagulls disturbed from his wake. They had thought that they had him, that they had finally caught up to the elusive smuggler that had been evading capture for oh-so-long.

 

But they had been wrong.

 

The man must’ve been travelling at fifty clicks when he ran his boat into the rocks near Spanish Room, lighting the sky up with the flames of the explosion. The man had never seen a jail, and he never would, choosing death over being captured by the Mounties.

 

What her great-grandfather had said was the most eerie part though… That on a cold winter’s night, when the moon is shining and the fog is thick upon the water, the smuggler’s laugh can be heard echoing near the rocks of Spanish Room, and the smell of French perfume--the smuggler’s last run of contraband--will fill the air.

 

“So he’s a ghost?” Maxine would ask, violet eyes wide as she tugged on her great-grandfather’s pant leg. “I thought ghosts weren’t real!”

 

He would merely chuckle and pet her hair, tapping the side of his nose. “There are a great many things in this world that people can’t explain so they pass them off as things that aren’t real. But they’re very real, love, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise…”

 

And those words were what had compelled Maxine to follow in her great-grandfather’s footsteps, joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and remaining ever on the lookout for the telltale signs of the truth behind her great-grandfather’s story.

 

Eventually, she finally was lucky enough to find it.

 

It was a cold winter night, the moon just beginning to peek above the horizon as a thick fog rolled across the waters by the southern shores of Newfoundland where Maxine was patrolling just off the coast of Spanish Room. In the distance as she steered her boat around a large bend of rocks, she swore that she could hear the sound of laughter in the distance.

 

The slightest glimmer of waves across the water caught the corner of her eye. It looked like the wake of a boat, but she knew that she was the only one there.

 

Closing her eyes, she let the mist swirl around her as she breathed in, the faintest hint of French perfume wafting toward her. Pushing her hair out of her face, Maxine slowly guided the boat closer to the shore and the growing sound of laughter.

 

“I know you’re there,” she called out. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

 

Part of her hadn’t been expecting an answer at all, just like all the other times that she had patrolled by the area and had sworn that she had seen something in the fog or that she had heard his laughter.

 

“Are you sure about that, love?”

 

Maxine whirled around at the sound of the voice. A voice that belonged distinctly to the laughter she had followed.

 

“You are real…” she breathed out, gazing at the shimmering translucent man standing upon an equally translucent boat not too far away from where her own boat was bobbing in the water. “I’d heard the stories,” she explained quickly, “heard about the sightings, but I haven’t ever been able to see you for myself.”

 

“So you know who I am?” the man asked, raising a thick eyebrow as he stared at her.

 

It was a little unnerving, but Maxine had certainly never expected a ghost to be so...sentient. Or handsome. The flickering thought caused a blush to rise to her cheeks, but she hoped that it wasn’t noticeable due to the redness from the cold.

 

“I do,” she murmured with a nod, “Arthur Kirkland. My great-grandfather was one of the men who had tried to capture you on the night that you died.”

 

Perhaps she shouldn’t have said that, but all Arthur did was laugh, his lips pulling back into a smirk. “Well, love, if you think you’re about to finish what he tried to,” he said, gesturing to her outfit with an extravagant sweep of his arm, “you’re out of luck.”

 

“I know, and that was never my plan,” Maxine stated, pulling her coat closer around her. “I just wanted to know that the stories were true.” Actually, she had never really thought through on what she would actually do if she found herself in this kind of situation. Maybe part of her had never truly believed that she would come face-to-face with Arthur. “I’ve been hearing about you for my entire life,” she admitted quietly, her eyes never leaving Arthur’s face for fear that he would suddenly vanish if she stopped watching him.

 

“Have you now?” This seemed to pique Arthur’s interest as he drifted closer to Maxine. “And what could you have possibly heard about me that would compel a good girl like you to go hunting for ghosts?”

 

She held her breath for a few moments as Arthur drifted almost within arm’s reach. “Why did you do it?” she asked before shaking her head, realizing that it wasn’t quite the right question. “Not the smuggling. I mean, why did you choose death over being captured?”

 

Arthur paused, rubbing his chin as he looked at her thoughtfully. “Because there are some things that are worse than death. I chose death over the dishonor that would have befallen me had my name been tarnished. After all, call it a folly or not, but my pride was all I had.”

 

“Didn’t you have someone that you loved?” Maxine blurted out, her eyes tracing over the man’s features.

 

A bitter smile. “Yes, but she died a long time ago, love.” He stared at her with such an intensity that she nearly flinched when a feeling similar to ice water brushed against her cheek, not noticing that he had reached out to try to touch her cheek.

 

Had he been driven insane by the loss of the woman that he had loved? Was that what had ultimately drove him to be so reckless with his life? She wasn’t sure, but his next whispered words were what caused her to truly freeze more than the winter air ever could.

 

“You look just like her.”

 

The sound of a foghorn in the distance caused Maxine to flinch, looking around for the source of the sound to only spot a distant boat passing through the area. When she had turned back around to where Arthur had previously been floating, she tried to contain her disappointment that he had disappeared, just as she had feared that he would.

 

It filled her with a sense of melancholy, to have the moment shattered by a random passing stranger when there were so many other things that she had wanted to ask and know about Arthur. Not to have only what she had heard of from stories.

 

It was only when Maxine was on her way back to the docks that she noticed the smell of French perfume that seemed to permeate the air all around her. Setting upon the seat in front of her was a piece of folded parchment, swirls of ink inscribed into the paper. The scent of the perfume seemed to emanating from that it.

 

Hesitantly, after she had moored the boat at the dock, Maxine opened up the parchment, her heart leaping nervously in her chest at the words that had been written within the letter.

 

_ I hope to see you again soon, my dearest Maxine. _


End file.
